#except for the vectors bullshit it was good

[thursdayg1rl]

to be honest kitten, non homogeneous second order linear differential equations are making daddy want to kill herself

[artbyblastweave]

worm sounds fascinating, how do I get started reading it? would you recommend starting from the beginning?

(Here we go)

So, first off, the specific questions you asked indicate that I should probably clarify the following: Worm is a single self-contained novel by Canadian author John McCrae (Pen name Wildbow). The book was written and published online for free on Wordpress, at a rate of two-to-three chapters a week, over the course of two years between 2011 and 2013. It's useful to conceive of it as a book written under the same paradigm as a particularly-faithfully-attended-to webcomic, except (and very unusually for a superhero thing) it's entirely prose with no visual elements. All of this is a longwinded way of answering your second question; yes, you should absolutely read it from the beginning, and the beginning is here. The entire book is available online, for free.

(In case that you haven't been able to pull together a broad sense of what the book is about just from perusing my Tumblr, I wrote a broad pitch for the setting at large and the story of Worm specifically here. The gist is that it’s a reconstructive superhero setting where superpowers are ironically tied into the user’s moment of greatest rock-bottom trauma, which is a major explanatory factor in why there are so many unstable kooks in costumes taking out their frustrations on the world; Worm proper follows the upwards-and-downwards trajectory of one Taylor Hebert, a teenaged insect-controller and would-be superhero with the secondary superpower of being able to rationalize nearly anything she does as being in the service of some greater good.)

Worm is divided into 31 arcs; each arc is comprised of 6-to-10 chapters, told in first person from Taylor’s perspective, followed by an interlude chapter told in third-person from the perspective of a member of the supporting cast. This structure is partly a holdover from early in Worm’s development, when the book was conceived as an ensemble piece that would rotate perspectives between different cape teams; as the book picked up steam, it also became a monetization vector, as Wildbow would write additional interludes if his donors hit certain milestones. This is important to note because one failure mode I’ve seen for reading Worm is that people will assume they can safely skip something called a “donation interlude” without missing anything important. You can’t. From a thematic perspective, the interludes are a major method by which the narrative keeps the protagonist honest, as they provide a sane or at least differently-insane perspective on the situation at hand, or on whatever over-the-top bullshit Taylor has pulled recently. From a craft perspective, the interludes are some of the best and most memorable writing in the book, at least in part due to the novelty of each character’s perspective.  From a story perspective, Wildbow was very diligent about making sure that most or all of the interludes introduced information or set up future events in a way that, if worst came to worst, he could incorporate into a regular chapter if the goal wasn’t met. But he did meet those donation milestones, meaning a lot of the book isn’t gonna make sense if you don’t read the interludes. Read the interludes.

You may have caught on to that “31 arcs with 5-10 chapters an arc” factoid and done some quick napkin math. Worm is long. Very Very Long. To my knowledge, Wildbow didn’t miss an update once, and 10,000 words every three days is considered a middle-of-the-road output for him. The effect of his truly insane production rate is twofold. First, the quality of Worm’s prose increases exponentially over the course of the book, going from workmanlike to amazing as a result of the sheer volume of practice he was getting. The second effect is that it’s 1.7 million words long. There’s a piece of apocrypha about how a mail-order copy of Stephen King’s It fell through a mailslot and pulverized the recipients chihuahua. Top researchers hypothesize that a printed edition of Worm could plausibly achieve similar results with a mastiff. This is mitigated by the pageless online format that lets you consume vast quantities of text without noticing the volume of what you’ve read; kinda similar to the infinite canvas trick that make some webcomics unprintable, or the infinite scroll UI trick if it were used for good instead of evil. But the gist is that Worm is very Long, and it’s also essentially a rough draft. Your enjoyment therefore might be contingent on your willingness to extend it a mulligan based on the absurd circumstances under which it was produced.

The very first chapter of Worm has the following disclaimer; Brief note from the author:  This story isn’t intended for young or sensitive readers.  Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. Some people interpret this as glib or dismissive on the part of the author; I think what’s closer to true is that he was just saving time, because the alternative would be most of the first chapter just being a ten-thousand-word long list of specifics. I can’t think of a single common trigger warning that isn’t applicable to Worm. Name a fucked-up thing, and it’s in there somewhere. Special mentions going to Bug Stuff (duh), dismemberment, torture, child abuse, incest, implied (and some offscreen) sexual assault, Nazis, animal death, and horrifically fleshed-out descriptions of bullying and institutional apathy, which are heavily influenced by the author’s own experience as a disabled student in public school. Reader Beware.

And, on a related note, the book was pretty clearly trying to be progressive.... by 2011 standards, which means you’re gonna be sucking air in through your teeth at points vis a vis representational issues, if that’s a big sticking point. It would be disingenuous for me to frame this as something that meaningfully detracted from my own reading experience, but it would be equally disingenuous to act like it doesn’t bother anyone deeply, and for valid reasons. To hone in on the queer rep angle specifically, picture the discourse if Ianthe was the only canon-lesbian character with any focus in TLT and you’re getting close to the situation on that front.

Wildbow (AKA Writers Georg, who should not have been counted) continued to maintain the two-chapter-a-week production rate to this day. His other works include: 

Pact (2014-2015) and Pale (2020-present) which are Urban fantasy works set in a universe colloquially known as the Otherverse, a setting in which essentially all magic is fueled by bullshitting the universe so hard that your chosen magical tradition is incorporated into reality as Something That Is Allowed; a major downstream result of this is that the sheer weight of precedent means that no magical practitioner is allowed to explicitly lie, on pain of the universe revoking their magical ability if they’re called out on it. Pact follows the misadventures of Blake Thorburn, a jaded 20-something who gets a target painted on his back after his grandmother- a widely feared diabolist- kicks the bucket and wills him her potentially apocalyptic cache of demonic texts as part of a complicated post-mortem gambit. Pale is a murder mystery/coming of age story. Set in Kennet, a small Canadian town with a subculture of unorthodox magical creatures who’ve managed to avoid being subordinated by more powerful human practitioners, the story follows a trio of pre-teen witches who’re hurriedly brought into the magical fold and tasked with trying to solve the murder of an extremely powerful magical being whose residence in the area was a major warding factor against magicians moving in and trying to bind the locals. 

Twig (2017-2018), a biopunk alternate-history coming-of-age novel set in a universe where, instead of writing Frankenstein, Mary Shelley actually figured out how to reanimate the dead; this kicked off a necroengineering/bioengineering revolution that leads to Britain conquering much of the world by the 1920s, lording over their holdings with everything from Kaiju to designer plagues, with a Royal Family that’s been modified into undying, post-human atrocities who treat their subjects as playthings as best. The protagonists are The Lambs, a group of heavily augmented child-soldiers used by The Crown’s science division as an investigation and infiltration unit; picture here The Hardy Boys or Scooby Doo if every case they were sent out on was in service of Ingsoc.  Alternatively, think of Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy with the same aesthetic sensibilities, but paired with the balls to portray British Imperialism as backed by genetic engineering as something apocalyptically horrifying rather than as forbidden-love fuel.

Ward (2018-2020) is the sequel to Worm, set in the parahumans universe two years after the end of the first book. Basically impossible to describe in any additional detail without massive spoilers; suffice to say that it was contentious. I liked it personally, and I maintain that it’s main error was not having the same ten years of Pre-writing that Worm got. Other works in the same universe as Worm include PHO Sundays, which were RP threads that Wildbow ran weekly on the official subreddit in which he would post a fictitious forum thread from within the setting’s cape enthusiast forums, PRT Quest, which was a semi-canon Play-by-Vote quest on the Spacebattles Forums, and Weaverdice, which is an ongoing WIP TTRPG for the parahumans universe that he works on in his spare time, and for which he’s written a lot of fleshed out faction documents and character profiles.

There’s probably some level of broad fandom analysis it’d be useful to impart here; one interesting bit of fandom lore is that, by virtue of being a superhero setting that made some effort to be internally coherent, the series received a big bump from the Rationalist community, who you may or may not have run into on here. The series was also a big hit with battle boarders, who-would-winners, and that whole corner of nerddom, since the power system is so well-defined and well-articulated; a consequence of this is that a major Worm fandom Locus is the wargaming-site spacebattles, which was hit with such an ongoing deluge of Worm Fanfiction that they have a designated Worm section on the creative writing board, something no other fandom necessitated. Both of those things have affected the shape of the fandom and the fanfiction scene in ways that I don’t feel qualified to comment extensively on this late in the evening, but it’s a fascinating little abyss to have a staring contest with. At any rate, I’d genuinely would recommend the subreddit for the OC threads, worldbuilding idea threads, and stuff of that nature, the Cauldron discord if you’re into fanfiction, and Tumblr if you’re into rambling character analysis. I would recommend none of these things before you’re actually done with the book.

That’s all I’ve got for the moment. Hope you enjoy the book. Or shun the book, if my sundry disclaimers generated a sort of warding effect. I hope you have a contextually appropriate interaction with the book.

[gay-victorian-astronomer]

4! 16! 20! 39! :D

4. What do you wear when you have to dress nicely?

The most formal I need to get on a regular basis is academic conference attire, so like... business casual level of formality. My usual conference outfit is black chinos, a button up shirt whose print can only be described as space arcade carpet, and a black blazer with a pronoun pin on the lapel.

For more formal occasions, I don't actually own anything that works at the moment— in the past I would wear some type of long gown for those but subsequent Gender Realizations have made that intractable. I very badly want to get a proper suit, but I am having trouble finding an option that will have the details of men's suiting I want while still fitting nicely on my body while also not being super fucking expensive. My impending graduation might give me some motivation to figure something out though...

16. Describe your favorite hoodie. How long have you had it? What makes it unique?

Strangely I haven't been on a big hoodie kick lately— I've gone through pretty much this whole winter without really touching any of them, I've been blanket-burrito-moding instead. So I guess I'll talk about my favorite sweatshirt at the moment/one of the hoodies that's been with me the longest?

My favorite sweatshirt at the moment is one I got back in October as a free giveaway for seniors at my university. It doesn't have a hood and it's pretty plain except for a large applique of the university athletics logo on the front. I like it because I accidentally sized up more than I should have so it's pretty big and snuggly on me.

One of the hoodies that I've had the longest is a purple one from when I went to Washington, DC on a school trip in 8th grade. Most of my hoodies were purchased while traveling— for a while I had to wear a back brace for scoliosis and the brace would put holes in the backs of regular T-shirts, so whenever we'd travel I'd get hoodies as souvenirs because the thicker fabric would hold up better. That hoodie did in fact hold up— it was my favorite hoodie for most of high school because it was surprisingly thick and good quality for being an impulse purchase from a street vendor, and it was made out of pretty pill-resistant fabric, not to mention the fact that it's my favorite color.

20. What kind of math are you best at?

Going purely by my academic record, I'm generally pretty good at anything that doesn't require me to do proofs.

In terms of math I like doing, I think most parts of multivariable/vector calculus are pretty neat, and they are pretty strongly tied to physics. In a similar vein, doing boundary value problem stuff & solving partial differential equations is pretty nice as long as the problem isn't set up to be annoying as fuck (looking at you, applied boundary value problems homework sets)

Dishonorable mention goes to integrals. I am learning through taking quantum theory that I have very limited patience for dealing with integral bullshit (and there are some truly deeply bullshit integrals that have been thrown at me in that class). Evil little bastards that make my brain hurt >:(

39. What was the best part of your day today?

Not much immediately jumps out at me— I've been sick for the past couple days but I felt well enough to go to class today so it was a pretty normal Wednesday all things considered. My housemate ordered food for delivery at lunchtime and they gave me a spring roll they got as a freebie that they couldn't eat, so that was tasty. I'm debating whether to order delivery for dinner in which case that will also be a tasty treat (but we shall see).

[cheesecake-beech]

Question: it seems the alot of the Despicable Me villains were influenced to become villains due to a negative childhood/past. Gru was basically neglected by him mom, Balthazars show was canceled, Scarlet was possibly living in poverty and had a neglectful family (atleast from her point of view), and let's face it, Vector possibly became a villain mainly cause it was the family buissness and he wanted to live up to his dad's expectations. Granted, there are probably many who became villains cause 'why the fuck not?', like El Macho, (Honestly, if being a villain was a straight up career path, I would TOTALLY be taking that opportunity), but still. Do you think atleast some of the Vicious 6 had traumatic or negative pasts that pushed them to want to become villains? And while we're on the topic, what was your ocs influences to become villains?

UHHHHH KINDA LONG POST SO UH UNDER THE CUT

I Think w some of the vicious 6 it could be both, something might've happened and it could also be a "lol fuck you" to society and to get what they want. To show that they're powerful, Like with Jean I noticed he's obviously somewhat anxious at times, when not out of the field, fidgeting and nail biting which are signs of anxiety, his voice cracks. It could just be he's scared of Belle. Maybe he had developed anxiety after smthing or someone then he developed tech to destroy it and now he's just spooked of Belle lmfao idk 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️

Wild Knuckles has probably been thru shit cuz, he old. And god damn how is he not dead this dude immortal like tf. And thats why he brought these dudes together to show that they're BETTER AND MORE SLAY 💅🏽✨✨✨ I'd say these guys probably shared a few things and thats why he was so 🥺 when they just kicked him to the curb

Nunchuck...idefk🧍🏽almost sent to hell then was like "I lived bitch" then became stronger than god :^)

Anyways my ocs? 😩😩😩

Alan Became a villain to make a face for himself, To feel some sense of worth for himself. (before also using his power to shut down brand competitors, did THAT out of petty honestly 🤪) Elliot Became a villain out of rage

and Valerie became a villain because of hatred, she so said fuck it and went with her homies to cause CHAOS.

Alan I'm thinking probably came from a family, of average wealth, his father was probably the money maker and a douche, pretty snarky about it. And I imagine Alan had a difficult time actually getting a job and because of that was probably kicked to the curb all because his dad wanted someone who could make them look good 🧍🏽So they kicked him out. Burned all his stuff. Told him he had no son, unless he made himself a bigger person, a face in this world, then MAYBE he'd let him back into their life. He's very lonely and was probably lost for some while until he found Elliot, which eventually lead them to Valerie. He holds a lot of self loathing, a lot of misery, he just wants to feel something other than hatred and loneliness so he bathes in money.

Valerie was expected to be her mommies and aunts perfect image, to be exactly like them, like some braindead zombie djhfkjdsfhd and she was for years, but every time she stepped out of line she got SOME kind of punishment, and would have to redeem herself in someway, but after just being done with that bullshit she tried to just, y'know walk out. But instead she just got the fking yells n hands pulled out on her. She really tried to save her image she had on them 🤷🏽‍♀️ BUT THEN THAT BITCH RAN. She knows how to run in heels because she slays 💅🏽✨

She holds a lot of resentment, but blowing shit up makes her feel better 🤪🤪🤪

And Elliot, became a villain out of hatred towards literally everyone ✨🕺🏽✨ except his family, this lil dude loved his family with all his big heart 🥺 Wasn't really always a villain, more like an anti-hero? At first? He would fight other crime and even random people for a bounty to bring home to his family, but ig he killed someone he shouldn't have bc one night when he came home and he found his family had been offed. he was just absolutely terrified. Then he was absolutely furious. THATS when he became a full on villain, to take his rage out on absolutely everything. He even built robot droids he calls his babies lol

But one day he stopped after he realizes, maybe this isn't a good way to let out his frustration 🧍🏽(there's more than that tho)

[larena]

SWTOR Parties Ranked

Wanted to see which SWTOR parties I liked best as a whole, so decided to do a little ranking of them. This is considering the entire party as a unit, and how many individual characters I feel strongly about.

Imperial Agent - Probably my favourite crew overall. I love every character in it, even if Kaliyo and SCORPIO scare the shit put of me and Lokin creeps me out, they're all fun characters to spend time with and talk to with interesting storylines. Probably gets bonus points for 3/5ths of them going on to be involved in the main plot for everyone. And I really like how they like... Acknowledge each other? There are multiple scenes of the Imperial Agent Crew talking to other members of the crew which is really cool

Trooper - This one I like because everyone has a reason to be there (which is even more than I can say for Agent - SCORPIO, Kaliyo, and possibly even Lokin and Vector can potentially have VERY little reason to stick around), they're all Havoc Squad, and Yuun and Vik are specifically recruited to be so. I also like all of the characters even if Vik, again, is kind of a piece of shit, and Yuun is kinda underdeveloped.

Bounty Hunter - With the major exception of Skadge, I love everyone on this crew. Mako is maybe my favourite starter companion overall, possibly tied with T7, and Blizz is... The best character. My jawa son. 20/10. I really love the BH crew as just this Morley crew of scum and villainy, and DEFINITELY appreciate it for being an Imperial crew with... No actual Imperials. The only points against the Bounty Hunter crew are, again, Skadge, and the fact that Gault, Blizz, and Skadge have very flimsy reasons for joining you (and Gault and Skadge have flimsy reasons for not being dead, depending on how you play your character)

Smuggler - This crew only ranks lower than Bounty Hunter because it doesn't have Blizz. But I like it for a lot of the same reasons I like the BH crew, it's just a gang of criminals trying to get by, again with no official representation from the faction they're ostensibly aligned with. Though Smuggler does again have points against it for having one character I absolutely hate in Corso (sorry Corso fans) who is probably my least favourite starter companion and one of my least favourite characters in the entire game. But it vastly makes up for Corso's dead weight with Risha, Bowdaar, Akaavi, and Guss all being characters I absolutely adore.

Jedi Consular - I like the Consular crew a lot for a lot of the reasons I like the Trooper crew, everyone has a reason to be there. With the exception of Tharan and *maybe* Zenith, it doesn't feel like the game has to strain to justify why any of the characters join your crew, they all have good reasons. The only thing I really have against it is we don't get much of the crew interacting with each other at all. There's a couple missions where they're all involved that are really cool but there isn't necessarily a sense they know each other. Also Tharan isn't as bad as Corso or Doc in terms of gross dude companions but I still... Really don't like him

Sith Inquisitor - Honestly this only goes here because I like the final two less. The Sith Inquisitor crew is... Really directionless? Aside from Khem, who is basically bound to you whether you want him to be or not, and Xalek who is your apprentice, no one really has a good reason to join the Inquisitor? Andronikos goes with you because... You helped him kill a guy I guess. Talos sticks with you because uh... I honestly entirely forget everything about Talos I don't like him very much. And Ashara... Makes sense if you actively corrupt her, I guess, but if you don't I don't really understand why she decides to stay with you forever. And if you do corrupt her the rest of her storyline makes very little sense. Besides Talos who isn't offensive, just kinda boring, and Xalek who I also don't dislike but really suffers from joining on *Corellia* which is later than literally every other character in the game and is literally the last planet, I love all of the Inquisitor companions as individuals I just don't think they really cohere.

Sith Warrior - I really like a lot of the ideas behind the Sith Warrior crew. Vette and (light side) Jaessa are absolutely fantastic characters that I love to death. Quinn is interesting as an extension of how the Warrior kinda has to deal with everyone they trust betraying them even if I hate how you're forced to forgive him, Broonmark is really interesting as a person who is so dogmatically committed to this philosophy of violence and destruction that he feels any member of his race that doesn't must be purged, and... Pierce just sucks, honestly. The Warrior crew isn't incoherent or bad, it's just full of *so* many characters I wish weren't forced to be on it. I understand why the Quinncident happens, and think Quinn's reasons for going through it are at the very least, understandable. But the fact that he HAS to walk out of it alive fucking sucks. I know the technical reasons for it, but I still dislike it. Broonmark is a character that none but the darkest dark side character would *ever* consider letting on their crew, to the point where in his Alliance Alerts it is literally *harder* to recruit him than not, and yet he joins no matter what and is also... Really underdeveloped. Pierce... Is just a fucking grunt. There's really no reason for him to continue to work with you after Taris. He did his job. And he's also... Super boring. Even Vette, who I love, doesn't... Really have a place with the Sith Warrior? Like I guess if you're a piece of shit and keep her a slave, she probably cleans the ship or whatever, but why would you take her into battle? She's a grave robber. I also don't really see how she thematically relates to the Warrior. I do love her though. She's great.

Jedi Knight - It sucks that I dislike the Jedi Knight crew so much because it is one of my favourite class storylines. But it's... Really incoherent to me? Like okay, T7 is there because R2-D2, and also he's my son and I love him. Kira is a fellow Jedi Knight (I refuse to consider her my Padawan, it makes no sense), sure. Doc... Though? Putting aside that I really hate Doc and think he sucks in every way possible, why is he here? I guess every ship needs a doctor except literally only the Trooper gets one. He doesn't really mesh with the themes of the Knight storyline? He doesn't seem like a guy who would even WANT to be on board a Jedis ship. I just don't get why he's there. Rusk, I guess, makes sense cause the Jedi have a connection to the Republic military but it still feels weird for him to be *personally* assigned to your ship and his storyline doesn't really go anywhere after he joins you. Scourge, I get, is the connection to the Revan plotline that has to be there because this is the main story of SWTOR, basically, and he's also directly connected to the emperor, so that all makes sense, I just... Don't like him (sorry Scourge fans). He's not the worst by any means but he's not a super interesting character to me? He's just a super generic Sith who decided the Emperor had to die. He also has absolutely no reason to stick around after the end of the story. Also I'm Petty and he killed the Jedi Exile for some bullshit ass destiny garbage so I really fucking hate him. And the crew as a whole feels maybe the least like a found family. Kira and Scourge have their stuff *after* the class storyline I guess, but it never feels like anyone has any connection to anyone else. They're all just... On the ship, I guess, not interacting.

If you read this far thanks, I have realized now that I'm here that this is a ridiculous endeavor and probably not a great post but I'm gonna post it anyway and I hope at least someone likes this post or agrees with some of it. Sorry again to anyone who is a fan of the characters I trashed (which, I know for Scourge at least is: Most people)

[ooops-i-arted]

Who’s your favorite companion for each Swtor class?

Omg I love so many but I do have definite faves.  I hope you like long posts lol.

Impside:

Sith Inquisitor:  KHEM VAL IS MY MOST FAVORITE COMPANION IN THE WHOLE GAME.  There’s none of this ~misunderstood~ or ~a villain is a hero whose story hasn’t been told~ bullshit.  No, he friggin’ eats people and he is evil af.  He is a delightful ham and has great one-liners.  He also has a soft spot for the Inquisitor - but (depending how you play it, but Illi is full DS) it’s still evil.  Friends who murder together stay together.  He is everything I want in a bad guy character.  10/10 ilu Khem you’re the best

Sith Warrior:  Can’t go wrong with Vette.  Love her sarcasm and wittiness and how she never loses her cheerfulness and defiance and kindness even in the very dark situations she ends up in.  I also think Quinn is a pretty fascinating character, both in-universe and out.  In-game he’s a man of duty caught between two masters and there’s so much you can do with that, depending how you play it.  (Though it could’ve been so much more - I think the aftermath of the Quinncident is criminally underwritten.  That should’ve had huge repercussions in the story, and with the Warrior’s relationship with Quinn.)  Out-of-universe I just find it fascinating how half the fandom thinks he’s a dashing romantic hero and the other half thinks he’s a sniveling backstabber.  It’s just kinda fun to observe.

Imperial Agent:  Honestly I don’t really like any of them.  Kaliyo is pretty cool but an awful person, so she’s somewhat enjoyable in a cringey way, and Raina is very sweet with an interesting backstory.  But none of them really shine for me.  (And Vector is my least favorite companion in the entire game.)

Bounty Hunter:  I LOVE ALL OF THEM (except Skadge, but who even likes Skadge?)  Mako is sweet and adorable but tough as nails and is the little sister Vae’ra never had and would protect with her life (and also what made me to play Vae as LS instead of DS).  Gault is an asshole but charming enough to make you enjoy it, and I feel like he has a bit of a soft spot for the crew which redeems him a bit (ymmv on that), and he has the best quips.  Torian is quiet but there’s so much depth with his fascinating backstory and his voice actor is really good at hinting that there’s so much more going on beneath the stoic surface.  But if I had to pick a top fave it would have to be Blizz.  Blizz is perfect, too precious for this world, if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this game and then Vae herself.

Pubside:

Jedi Knight:  I don’t like any of them except T7, the Actual Purest of Cinnamon Rolls.  T7 + Blizz = spinoff show plz.

Jedi Consular:  Felix the Underrated.  He’s kind and sensible and straightforward, which doesn’t make him the most interesting character on his own (imo) but in context of all the political stuff really makes him stand out in the Consular storyline as a continuous point of strength and reliability for the Consular, especially if you romance him.  Also his [spoiler] holocron in the head thing is an incredible cool story idea and there should’ve been an entire storyline arc about that imo.  Also Nadia is adorable and Qyzen is a badass, and his arc of shame to becoming a leader of his people is really cool.

Smuggler:  I LOVE ALL OF THEM SO MUCH.  Risha my snarky queen who doesn’t actually like you or want to be your friend except she’s so lonely and she so, so does, and reaches a point where she’s able to trust someone and be there friend after so long of not doing that.  Bowdaar, who’s a total badass and yet totally chill at the same time.  Goofy Guss the failed Jedi, who chooses to help you instead of his big bad boss just because he likes you.  (And one of the very few highlights of KotFE was seeing him all grown up as a Jedi!  SO PROUD OF MY FISH SON.)  Akaavi loses everything she loves and could’ve been consumed by vengeance but decides to make a new family with the ragtag smuggler crew instead.  And I’m sure none of you are surprised if I say Corso is my fave of the faves (and my 2nd fave in the whole game after Khem).  I love that he’s loyal and kind and that he makes a conscious decision to always be loyal and kind, even if he gets screwed over or screws it up himself, just because it’s the right thing to do (even after having his birth and found family murdered, something that would be enough to send someone without as strong a moral core down a dark side path).  Also the whole farmboy schtick reminds me of my grandparents’ farm and happy childhood memories.  And he has my favorite NPC voice in the game.

Trooper:  Honestly I can’t get into anything about the trooper, including companions, but Forex is the exception.  I crack up every time he speaks and I decided Tesh’s ship is named the Durasteel Eagle after his “WE WILL RIDE THIS DURASTEEL EAGLE TO VICTORY” line.  I salute you, patriotbot.

Bonus KotFE Edition:  I liked HK-55 the best but now that I’ve actually played Kotor it’s kind of obvious he’s just a watered-down version of the Original HK Droid, who cannot be beat.  I also like Koth and think he’s underrated, but he’s completely wasted by the writing (though who or what isn’t in KotFE?).  The perspective of a Zakuulan could be fascinating and also useful and he should’ve been way better utilized by the story.  Theron’s cool too.

[strangcrdoctor]

∞Guardians commentary time, because I was honestly too wiped out to get to it last night but I’m still very up for it now. 

1. So here’s my question about the opening sequence on Morag. If Ronan had hired the people that faced off with Quill in the opening sequence on Morag, was it just the case that Ronan’s men arrived 2.5 minutes too late, like Peter arrived just early enough to beat out Yondu? Because initially my impression was that they were indigenous and guarding it, but I know now that not to be the case because Korath is very much a devotee of Ronan, etc. But even if it is the case that Peter beat Ronan’s people, holy timing Batman. Seriously kudos to Quill for being even if incidentally two steps ahead of even Ronan’s game. 2. Okay one, Nova Prime Irani Rael is a hot piece and two she definitely deserves to be the girlfriend of General Leia Organa you can disagree with me but that makes you a suspect human being. Anyway, Rael making the diplomatic call to the Kree to denounce Ronan was not out of bounds for normal statecraft. Especially with a new and tenuous alliance, she’s not only right in calling bullshit that the Kree empire has said nothing to denounce Ronan, but she’s also right in advising they make a statement to stabilize their early peace because early peace is amazingly fragile. But like way to not maintain an alliance at all Kree Empire. You suck. 3. The actual diversity of felons on the Kyln is pretty neat, I’m not going to lie. Not just interspecies representation but also body type representation. There’s big very obviously non-straight criminals. There’s cool as shit looking alien species. There’s chubby feminine looking criminals! Tell me who they are Marvel! Tell me. 4. Now that Thanos’ real character has been revealed in the course of IW it is no damn wonder why Thanos thought of Ronan as a petulant child. Granted, Thanos’ logic is worse in that it is slightly better, but by comparison Thanos is an overly dire pragmatist were Ronan is very much just a racist bigot with a power complex. Thanos predictably find’s Ronan’s racial shortsightedness pithy, and I really have zero doubt that if Ronan had actually gone to piss on Thanos’ front lawn he would not have lasted long. 5. On the other hand, really Thanos. #1 piece of advice in the universe is don’t torture and dismantle women and then trust them to be complicit. You will die. 6. If anyone doesn’t feel pelvic sorcery during a close listening to Fooled Around & Fell In Love they are definitely soulless. 7. I also really really want to know what the hell they were drinking on Knowhere that got Rocket and Drax drunk (I mean who knows they might both be lightweights but I doubt it.), because Stephen wants some. 8. I’ll come right out and say it it’s a fucking shame that Tivan’s collection gets blown to hell. Not because Tivan isn’t twisted as hell keeping live specimens and slaves to himself, but more on the “holy crap what cool stuff just got destroyed that the universe will never see again” kind of way. It’s like the burning of the Library of Alexandria, only somehow worse. 9. The nods given to Thor: The Dark World and The Avengers are of course interesting given there’s a Dark Elf and a Chitauri, but I’m super curious about what made those particular specimens of each special enough for Tivan to keep them. Tivan deals with the depths and breadths of the universe coming in and out of Knowhere, and he doesn’t just snag one item from every species or race he comes across. So was there something interesting in particular about that Dark Elf and that Chitauri? Was the Chitauri one of the only remaining survivors after the nuclear explosion? Was the Dark Elf one of Malekith’s higher ups? I’m just curious about them, and curious about Tivan’s reasoning for keeping them. 10. Okay but adding to this whole Tivan’s collection tangent, Cosmo the Space dog cracks me up and not just because it’s funny for Tivan to have a doggie cosmonaut in his collection. Cosmo is a legit character in the Guardians comics, and he’s head of security on Knowhere and telepathic. So even if Tivan is keeping him in his collection or is just trying to keep him out of the way for something, just imagine what it’s like having an angry Russian dog thinking at you all the time because you’re getting in the way of him doing his job. 11. Slightly different bend on the Tivan train, but Carina legitimately just heard Tivan talk about how the stone was capable of destroying even a whole group of people who tried to wield it, and she was still willing to take the risk of being incinerated rather than living with her current conditions. Carina wasn’t resolutely making the hero play - she was making a suicide play knowing full well it would end that way if the hero play didn’t work. 12. When Yondu states that Peter doesn’t give a rip about Terra like. Dude. How many fucking references in this movie has he made to Terran culture? Music and movies and art and holy shit would you look at that, he sure as hell talks like a more culturally integrated human than anything else you twat waffle. Great way to piss him off though and get him to play it your way, which granted is what I think Yondu was probably doing the whole time but still. You don’t look at this boy who idolizes Footloose and knows who Jackson Pollock is and tell him he doesn’t care about Earth. Caring about Footloose and Jackson Pollock at all is a labor of love. 13. Speaking of Yondu, how the fuck is that the jewel frog bauble considered by anyone to be worth of the “high end” community? On top of it just hurting me, it does really raise the question of how is trite crap like that so valuable? Does it have some vector of worth and rarity because its origins are weird, obscure, or finite? Are the gems magical artifacts of some kind? Are the wealthy in space that mother-fucking self-ironic? Because if they are I want to know them. 14. Peter Quill, everyone, who makes a dick message to garner trust 15. Not for the first for for the last time will I say this, but Ravager tech is impressive. And I am amazingly intrigued at how Ravagers got such good technology and resources on their hands. True, they steal things and make money off of trades and pilfering. But that isn’t the only way to acquire goods and it’s not the only thing a viable pirating economic model can survive off of. Half the reason the Ravagers succeed is because they run like a business, have clientele, and are clientele for certain sects, right? So what kind of powerful connections do they have that allow them their advanced fleets? That’s the kind of shit I want to know about. 16. Also what the hell are Ronan’s pilots with the weird glowy psychic spheres on the Dark Aster? Is the Dark Aster itself Kree technology, or something Ronan got from Thanos who appropriated it from some other world he’s conquered? Because we know so little about the Kree in the MCU it’s hard to say, but I suppose we’ll have to wait and see if the Kree ever do become a part of canon so we can have more data with which to make a comparison. 17. Guardians does a pretty good job of taking at least some time to portray how terrible aerial dogfighting is on a mass scale because honestly it’s a bloody nightmare. It’s pictured so often and so carelessly in film that it’s not something we often think about, and the only movie I’ve ever seen that addresses how it feels in human terms is Dunkirk, but the intensity and messiness of it in Guardians is still pretty realistic and I give it props for that. 18. It occurs to me that maybe the younger, post-GOTG Groot is so bitter and antisocial for a while because of how giving the elder Groot was, and the seedling felt the sacrifice and his existence was under-appreciated? It was just a thought that crossed my mind. 19. Also Ronan you twat. “Engage Immolation Initiative” is just Big Mean & Fancy for “light ‘em up fuckers,” don’t pretend you’re any cooler than anyone else. 20. I really really appreciate the design that went into the Xandarian cityscape as a fully intergalactic multicultural society that shows it even in the way the city and buildings are assembled. The city isn’t uniform like a lot of science-fiction cities are - it’s got texture. Different sectors have different styles of buildings and different architecture. Like a real metropolitan area, it’s a patchwork of influences and it’s very well done. 21. Kudos to Rocket for identifying that ground-to-air is a super viable defense strategy. One thing that people tend to forget about ground-to-air is that aside from clouds, there’s no obstacles behind which to hide in the sky, so while ground defense might seem clumsy at times, air offense is hugely precarious because there is absolutely no defense mechanism against any attack except maneuvering, and when a defense is fully able to target that weakness it’s pretty damn effective. 22. It’s interesting to me how well superhero movies integrate climaxes within battle sequences? Some people might call it lazy but I call it interesting when when defense lines break, plans fail, and when teams encounter interference to push the plot forward. Plot movement in Marvel movies curry a lot of momentum from these events, but actually they’re pretty interesting replications of how modern society has been built on the results of such events within our own history. History has been moved by these exact same sorts of events, which is why they make sense to us in storytelling. 23. Peter protecting Groot from Rocket’s crash into the into the Dark Aster? Golden. And then Peter immediately going to Rocket from the wreckage? Stellar. Peter Quill you are a gem. 24. I will never forgive Marvel for hurting me as bad with “We are Groot” as Warner Brothers did with “Suuuuuperman” in Iron Giant. Stop giving Vin Diesel more opportunities to rip my heart out of my chest, please. 25. My mom and my uncle, her brother, both adored the entire GOTG soundtrack so much and it brought them so much joy watching it together that it got me into Motown. Even though it was oblique and dorky, Marvel did something amazing with this movie and gave my parents a piece of their own youth back, while giving me a chance to share in their knowledge and experience. It’s stuck with me ever since, especially because fundamentally that experience is the reason I got into Motown music, which I now adore with all my heart.

Alright, done with that. These are... just getting longer and longer I’m sorry guys no one should have ever allowed me to do this. Oh well. Too late to stop me now. Captain America: The Winter Solider is up next, and oh the pain.∞

[douchebagbrainwaves]

OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT COMPANIES

Maybe not all the way to succeed is through following the rules. Raising money decreases the risk of failure.1 It would be pretty straightforward to make a few people think in our insular little Web 2.2 If you want to take longer, of course; when parents do that sort of thing? Why is it that research can be done by any sufficiently rich private citizen. So the best plan would be to try it. If half the startups we fund succeed, then half of you are going to get: either part of a study.3 Sure, go off and get jobs or go to grad school in the fall the startup reads to everyone as a programmer. That would be an extraordinary bargain.4 Another reason parents don't want their kids having sex is that they get paid by getting their capital back, ideally after the startup IPOs, or failing that when it's acquired. When a man runs off with his secretary, is it always partly his wife's fault?

He knows what happened in Viaweb. It has always seemed to me the solution is to take fewer board seats.5 Of course, what shows up on the radar screen may be different from the one after the Internet Bubble. I've found myself nostalgic for the old days, you could presumably get them to stay is to give them enough that they're not tempted by an offer from Silicon Valley VCs that requires them to invest large amounts, and a large class of startups that cause stampedes end up flaming out in extreme cases, partly as a way to make viewers watch TV synchronously instead of watching recorded shows when it suited them. Many students feel they should wait and get a job. Parents know they've concealed the facts about sex, and many at some point, either when you graduate they don't give you a list of all the startups they'd invested in.6 So why shouldn't undergrads be able to say they were funded by Sequoia, even if they don't hit it, they've failed in the only thing that mattered, and you feel you have to understand the forces driving it. You can see the desktop is over. The popular image of a visionary. I suspect they'd have a hard time enforcing this, but that's because it's so important. If anything oversensitive.

Along with such outright lies, there must have been told a lot of people, but in fact it will have near zero effect on Boston when we were based there half the year.7 If you made something no better than GMail, but fast, that alone would let you start to pull users away from GMail.8 But eventually the open source world won, by producing Javascript libraries that grew over the brokenness of Explorer the way a startup feels is at least a roller coaster and not drowning. When it comes to deals, you have to be a large tumor.9 Why isn't there a parallel VC industry that invests in ordinary companies in return for the money? Then you'd really be in good shape. So if it seems too good to be true to think you could grow a local silicon valley by giving startups $15-20k each like Y Combinator there, but it's often frustrating at 15.

But there is no secret cabal making it all work. I thought I was ready to question everything I knew.10 The second will be easier. Till about 2002 you could safely misinterpret it as promising that clock speeds would double every 18 months.11 Raising money is the better choice, because new technology is usually more valuable now than later.12 Acquirers too, while we're at it. 1-n Whenever you're trading stock in your company for something that more than doubles the company's average outcome, you're net ahead.13

Whereas a 25 year old over the 32 year old. They'll edge gradually into a different business without realizing it. If you want to learn what lies are told to kids, the most common reason they give is to protect them.14 As long as you've made something that a few months ago we replaced it with an iMac bolted to the wall. That's an extreme example, of course; when parents do that sort of narrow focus can be. So at the last moment. After we fund startups we work closely with them for three months—so closely in fact that we insist they move to where we are. If you're going to be when you grow up.

I were you I'd look for the people who would have responded to the spam. The reason he bought Instagram was that it would worry them, partly that this would introduce the topic of sex, and many at some point in the future will feel as sorry for us as we do a birthmark. What is it about startups that makes other companies want to buy them?15 Better or worse, it's happening. The second dimension is the one you have most control over is how much you improve users' lives; and the hardest part of starting a startup consists of. You can't use euphemisms like didn't go anywhere. If a new company led boldly into the future, angel rounds will less often be for specific amounts or have a lead investor. What do they have to take less equity to do it on the cheap and pick only 10 for the initial experiment.

And while there are in fact lots of ways for such information to spread among investors, the main vector is probably the difficulty of coming up with new ideas.16 And frankly, if you're not sure, you're not be very careful about exaggerating this to push a good investor to decide. Investors don't like trying to predict how the startups we've funded. Whether you end up among the living or the dead comes down to the third ingredient, not giving up. Sam Altman did. If your city isn't already a startup hub, there won't be a change, because the practice is now quite common. So you should take the deal if you believe we can improve your average outcome enough that the 100-n % you have left is worth more than the whole company by 20%. Sam Altman has it.17

Notes

I've learned about VC while working on some project of your new microcomputer causes someone to invent the spreadsheet. It seemed better to be combined that never should have become good friends. When investors ask you to agree.

Actually it's hard to mentally deal with the New Deal but with World War II to the ideal of a severe-looking man with a wink, to the minimum you need to run a mile in under 4 minutes.

The air traffic control system works because planes would crash otherwise.

Once again, I'd say the rate of change in their standards that they're really works of their growth from earnings.

Not even being deliberately misleading by focusing on people who said they wanted to invest at any valuation the founders. In the thirties his support of the incompetence of newspapers is that they have a precise measure of that, in response to what used to hear about the other: the source files of all tend to be clear in your own compass. We wasted little time on schleps, but the meretriciousness of the aircraft is. The bias toward wisdom in this respect as so many trade publications nominally have a single project is a trailing indicator in any other field, and it has to be younger initially we encouraged undergrads to apply, and the older you get paid much.

Several people have responded to this day, thirty years later Jim Ryun ran a 3 million cap, but they start to feel guilty about it. The New Yorker. Hypothesis: Any plan in which case immediate problem solved, or b to get fossilized. If language A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that's not true!

Bullshit in the sciences, even if our competitors hate most? Even as late as Newton's time it filters down to you.

Robert Morris says that clothing brands favored by urban youth do not do this would do for a long thread are rarely seen, so I may try to be clear. If a man has good corn or wood, or at least prevent your beliefs about how to value potential dividends. Max also told me about a related phenomenon: he found it easier for some reason, rather than ones they capture. But what he means by long shots.

Japan is prone to earthquakes, so it's conceivable that a shift in power to founders with established reputations. Many will consent to b rather than just getting kids to be low.

Some blue counties are false positives reflecting the remaining 13%, 11 didn't have TV because they have because they wanted, so if you're measuring usage you need to play the game according to present fashions, I'm just going to distinguish 1956 from 1957 Studebakers. Mueller, Friedrich M. Stir vigilantly to avoid that.

I'm going to get them to represent anything. The expensive part of creating an agreement from scratch.

Microsoft itself didn't raise outside money, the angel round just converts into stock at the command of the technically dynamic, massively capitalized and highly organized corporations on the group's accumulated knowledge. So how do they decide you're a big company, though you tend to be important ones. In my current filter, dick has a significant effect on the summer of 1914 as if having good intentions were enough to incorporate a prediction of quality in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Oxford University Press, 1973, p.

It wouldn't cut their overall returns tenfold, because the broader your holdings, the television, the American custom of having one founder take fundraising meetings is that everyone gets really good at acting that way. What I'm claiming with the issues they have zero ability to change. Wolter, Allan trans, Duns Scotus ca.

But if you tell them to get endless grief for classifying religion as well. That's the difference directly. Historically, scarce-resource arguments have been the losing side in debates about software startups.

Security always depends more on not screwing up than any preceding president, he was notoriously improvident and was soon to reap the rewards.

Articles of this: You may not even in their graphic design, or at least for those founders.

Companies didn't start to feel uncomfortable. If all the rules with the exception of the x company, though sloppier language than I'd use to develop server-based applications.

[wizardofbits]

Sonic Forces. Hoo, boy.

Strap yourselves in, folks, this is gonna be a long one. I have numerous thoughts about Sonic Forces. The latest "modern Sonic" game from Sega to use the "Boost formula", Sonic Forces saw a multiplatform release on November 7, 2017. It features three playable characters: Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic, and a new character called the Avatar, as they work together to stop the evil Dr. Robotnik (fuck you, that's his name) who has already taken over the world, with help from the mysterious Infinite.

Ask a diehard Sonic fan and they might be hard-pressed to find anything good about this game. More likely, they'll probably say "Nothing about this is good, Vector. That's why it's called war." And then laugh at themselves for their oh-so-creative sense of humor, repeating memetic lines from the game. But the game is a good game, just not a great one. It's a step down from Generations and in that respect a bit of a disappointment, but it's not terrible. It's definitely not going to take Sonic soaring to new heights either. Still, I would much rather play Sonic Forces than play a long list of Sonic games. Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Heroes, Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Adventure 2 (yeah I went there)... The real problems with the game break down as follows.

The Levels Are Too Fucking Short

The average Modern Sonic or Avatar level is about as long as Metal Harbor from Sonic Adventure 2. That was a... really short level, in a game that had too little Sonic-gameplay content as it was. But while that was just one level, the entire game is like this in the case of Sonic Forces. Classic Sonic levels are, maybe, about the size of an act from Sonic 1. The thing is, we're used to bigger stages than this. In Sonic Forces, you reach a point where you're finding a groove through a level and having a good time, and then whoops! It's over. The game makes up for it somewhat by packing in a lot of stages (30 to be precise), but I'd rather have 12 memorable stages than 30 forgettable ones.

The Level Assets R Bored ._.

One of the really remarkable things about early Sonic games is what vaporwave kids call A E S T H E T I C S. Early Sonic was aesthetic as FUCK, borrowing cues from the trends in the late 1980s and very early 1990s in graphic design, and especially, old-school CG. If you've ever seen the old Mind's Eye videos and things of that nature, you know exactly where those polygonal palm trees and Escher-esque birds and fish come from. This sort of eye for detail made the early games absolutely beautiful to look at, with the levels boasting streamlined curves and maze-like layouts, bursting with color and exhibiting harmonious balance that was pleasing to the eye. Even the backgrounds were gorgeous -- who could forget Green Hill's shimmering seaside, with mountainous islands and white puffy clouds in the background, or the steel industrial towers rising into the sky in Oil Ocean from Sonic 2, with a heat wave effect around the searing sun above?

What do we get in Sonic Forces? A bunch of boring, rectilinear bullshit, that's what. In fact, the Green Hill stages (way to come up with new locations, guys) just have different-sized checkerboard boxes in the background. Sure, there are some ramps and slopes in the level itself, but they're either straight or just use the same few curves over and over. It's not quite Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric bad, but it's not very good. Also, the same gimmicks are used over and over, level after level, and most of them were taken from Sonic Colors, the first game to feature all-Boost gameplay. Jesus Christ, there's a level called Chemical Plant but it doesn't use the Chemical Plant assets aside from some of the glass tube ramps carrying blue liquid. The elevators, in particular, are samey rectangles instead of the unique Chemical Plant lifts. It's not quite as bad as the bland, depressing, rushed aesthetics of, say, Shadow the Hedgehog, but Sonic Mania and Sonic Generations set our standards higher, with mind-blowingly creative takes on old and new locations.

And the level layout doesn't make any sense because it's not themed to the stage. It's just the same boring shit as every other level. Take Casino Forest, for example. If you remember Casino Night Zone from Sonic 2, you will recall that the entire level was laid out like a giant pinball machine. The slopes and curves seemed to funnel Sonic into the slots when he came across them. Sonic Forces, no such luck. It's pretty much "let's use the same rectilinear corridors and rooms we use for every other level, throw in a couple of ramps -- oh shit, this is a casino level isn't it? Well, we'll throw in some bumpers and slots here and there. Done!" Oh yeah, there's the fact that you can't steer Sonic into the slots very well because you don't have the same level of precision and control. Which brings us to...

The Physics Are Glitchy

Modern Sonic controls like ass. So does the Avatar. They either don't move when I want them to move, or shoot off in a direction I didn't want to go in. Their acceleration curves on the ground are janky as fuck, and when they jump you have to wrestle with the control stick to get them to go where you want them to go. And Classic Sonic isn't much better. He feels "sticky", like he doesn't really want to move when you hit a boost pad, spin dash, or roll. To be fair, none of these are too bad. They don't make the game play like Bubsy, or Sonic '06 or anything. It's just... when old-school Sonic physics is coded into your muscle memory, it can be hard to get used to these foibles in the game's physics and tune your stick and button responses to them.

My biggest complaint is that, particularly in one late-game level, the road curves ahead of you, and with no guardrails to keep you on track, if you aren't holding right hard as you dash along this stretch of track, you will crater to your death. But then there's another stretch of track where the game dynamically adjusts your trajectory to keep you on the track as long as you hold Up, so if you take what you've learned from the previous stretch of track and try to turn Sonic into the curve, you will again fall to your death. That's probably the biggest fuck-you in the game, but it's just in that one level as far as I can tell, and overall the game has a much lower cheap-death count than Adventure 2, Heroes, or Shadow -- let alone '06. (Fuck you, '06 and fuck the fans who say it's good or it can be made good. It's broken.)

The Boss Battles Suck

So Infinite, supposedly, is more powerful than Sonic. Shouldn't that be reflected in, you know, the boss fights against him? Instead we get two boring, relatively easy fights against him where all you have to do is dodge his straightforward attacks and mash the jump button when he's in range. Sonic games used to be known for neat boss fights. There was one at the end of each zone, and each one was based around Robotnik in his egg vehicle, but they all featured different weapons and upgrades to the vehicle, and thus different attack patterns and vulnerabilities. Later games would bring midbosses at the end of each zone's first act. This formula would be abandoned for the Sonic Adventure series, and I really wish it'd come back. But even then, Sonic Adventure 2 had a variety of interesting bosses, even if they weren't all Robotnik.

Things went really off the rails with Sonic Heroes, which had boring, samey bosses up until the last one or two, and this seems to be the pattern Sega feels comfortable in now. Which is fine, except no, it's not, it sucks actually. And it's particularly galling because this is the game where Robotnik finally takes over the world. It should be fraught with peril and danger for our heroes, and they should have to square off against terrifying robots and creations the likes of which the world has never seen before. But no, it's run down a corridor, hit the guy a few times, dodge his telegraphed attacks and fucking repeat until dead. This is even true of the final boss, which is just a ripoff of the final boss from Sonic Colors. That one was fun the first time, but come on. Even Sonic and the Secret Rings had an imaginative final boss.

Oh, another annoying thing: there are encounters which look like boss fights because they feature huge enemies that must be defeated, such as the giant snake from Luminous Forest or the giant crab thing from that one Avatar level with the giant crab thing in it. But you've been trolled because a couple of quick time events later and you fucking beat it. Jesus Christ, Sega.

So those are the bad points of this game. Here are some good points:

Your Name, the Hedgehog

I like the Avatar. More than I expected to. Full background: the Avatar is a custom character created using the in-game character creation facility. The character creation tool is very basic, allowing you to pick from among seven species, two genders, and a variety of head and eye shapes and base skin and fur colors, but that's it. Then again, it's still about as wide a range as the imagination of a typical Sonic fan can muster. Completing missions allows you to unlock accessories to decorate your OC with -- but aside from the Wispon (a gun powered by colored Wisp energy which grants one attack ability and one sub-ability) these do not affect gameplay at all. In fact the only variables that do affect gameplay are species (each species grants a different, specific perk; for example birds can double-jump and cats can hold onto one ring when they get hit) and equipped Wispon.

Adding the Avatar was a brilliant marketing move by Sega. They know what's up. They knew that diehard fans would piss themselves at being able to make their fursona canon in a Sonic game; and ironic hipsters would attempt to recreate Coldsteel or Sonichu in the character editor. Sega also resisted the temptation to decide for us that what we really need is another, vastly different, playstyle from the go-fast modern Sonic style we've gotten used to by now. Accordingly, Avatar levels are Boost levels with a different moveset. You can homing-attack enemies and swing from grapple points with your grappling hook, use your Wispon to clear out groups of enemies, or collect Wisps of the appropriate color to enable an otherwise inaccessible form of locomotion -- like launching yourself into the air with the Burst Wispon or doing a light-dash along rings with the Lightning Wispon. They're not as zippy as the Boost levels, but hey, there can only be one Sonic. Some levels let you play as Sonic and the Avatar together, successfully merging the gameplay of the two characters by putting Sonic in the lead when you press the Boost button and the Avatar in the lead when you attempt to grapple or use Wispon attacks. It's quite seamless, even less clunky than Sonic Heroes, and I love it. They could make a whole game out of this style of play. There are moments when Sonic and Avatar together do a "Double Boost", plowing through enemies and sweeping up rings at hyper speed, but these sections last about ten seconds apiece, in keeping with the game's general theme of frustrating shortness.

Finally, the Avatar is perfectly integrated into the game's cutscenes, giving them a critical role in the unfolding story.

Plot and Theming

So the plot goes like this: with the power of Infinite and the Phantom Ruby (that weird rock he dug up in Sonic Mania), Dr. Robotnik has succeeded in defeating Sonic and taking over the world. A band of rebels called the Resistance -- led by Knuckles and bearing quite a few parallels with Princess Sally's Freedom Fighters from Sonic the Hedgehog (TV series), aka "SatAM" -- seeks to track Sonic down, wherever he's being held, and retake the world. In Sonic's absence, a new hero (your Avatar), a survivor from one of Infinite's assaults on the population, steps in to help the resistance.

Meanwhile, "Tails", presumably wracked with guilt after Sonic's capture, re-connects with Classic Sonic (the version of him from Mania) and the two eventually lend their help to resisting Robotnik as well.

It's a fairly basic plot. It goes back to some dark themes -- like war and torture -- that we really haven't seen in a main-series Sonic game since Shadow. But there's no self-conscious attempt to be grimdark and edgy, no characters brooding about their past, no "damn fourth Chaos Emerald", and no human-hedgehog shipping. Everything is, still, pretty lighthearted and fun. Which gets pretty weird when you're told Sonic has been "tortured for months" aboard the Death Egg, and yet all he says to his torturers are the usual lighthearted, sarcastic quips. But what the hell. He's a blue cartoon hedgehog. This idea of cartoon animals in a war-torn world reminds me of nothing so much as the North Korean propaganda cartoon, Squirrel and Hedgehog, which even Western viewers admit has a sort of bizarre charm about it -- and that's where Sonic Forces is. Although not with the anti-Western propaganda of a repressive dictatorship.

I like how each of Sonic's friends has a specific role in the resistance: Knuckles is the leader, Silver the second in command, Amy the data analyst, Shadow and Rouge are the recon agents. "Tails" has gone underground to conduct his own search for Sonic. Sonic's cast has grown quite a bit in the past few years, and it's good that they found something for all these characters to do without burdening the story with needless exposition or a surfeit of unnecessary "gameplay styles".

Another thing I like is that they managed to keep Sonic's sarcastic "attitude" without making him a jerk. Looking back on 90s Sonic media, it's noteworthy how Sonic is an asshole even to his friends, and gets away with it because he's the hero. In "SatAM" and the Archie comics, for instance, he never passes up an opportunity to make fun of Antoine. In the British "Sonic the Comic", he's constantly mocking "Tails". In this game, Sonic manages to save his jokes at others' expense for his actual enemies and is quite charitable to his friends (especially "Tails" and the Avatar). At multiple points in the game, upon hearing a report of impending defeat from Resistance fighters, he says something like "You've done more than enough already. Good work, everyone! I'll handle it from here."

That's another thing: they actually found a use for in-game quips from the main character. Rather than Bubsying it up and having him say "there's a bounce pad!" or "I love rings!" every time some game event is triggered, Sonic Forces does a fair bit of story exposition with Star Fox-like radio chatter from the main characters before and during the game's stages, as well as cutscenes. The chatter can be turned off at the player's discretion, but I don't find it too distracting, and some of Sonic's lines are genuinely funny.

If there's anything wrong with the plot, it's that sometimes they seem to raise the stakes, but don't follow through and the situation is resolved in like a minute. Sonic is thought dead in the early game, but a couple of stages later, he's alive. Worse, there's a scene where Robotnik banishes Sonic and Avatar to "Null Space". Ten seconds later, they're back out on the street.

Boost Gameplay

The Boost levels are the most fun ones in the game. When you're barreling down the track at a zillion miles per hour, you don't notice the odd bit of minor physics glitch (except when it sends you clean off the track; I'm looking at you, Metropolitan Highway...). They didn't keep up the standards set by Generations, but they didn't kill all the fun in the game, especially the Boost bits, either.

But that just provokes the question: why didn't they keep up the standards set by Generations? I liked this game a fair bit, but I wanted to like it a lot more. Hell, I want to like every Sonic game as much as I like 2, 3, and & Knuckles. But this is where we are. Sonic has just gone from consistently good, to consistently bad, to just plain inconsistent. Why can't he just stay good?

The problem with Sonic is, I believe, a problem with Sega. It ties back into what I said about the franchise in the past: Sega just doesn't understand which values the Sonic brand represents, from a gameplay perspective. They use him as a media icon, but they have no vision of what the player should expect when they boot up a Sonic game. Hell, the players have a better idea than Sega does, which is why an effective fan game (Sonic Mania) got the highest praise the main series has seen in literally decades!

But here's the thing, Sonic fans: It's easy for you to say that a particular game is bad, and even -- as I've done here -- point out what's bad about it. It's much, much harder for a game developer to find and fix those bad things. Say "the physics are too glitchy", or "the jumps are too floaty" to a game dev, and you may was well say "tighten up the graphics on level 3". Take jumping for instance. There are quite a few variables that go into a game character's jump. A jump can be modelled as an impulse that sends a character's velocity upward followed by acceleration back downward due to gravity. But how big should the impulse be? How quickly should they accelerate back to earth? Do you want to have jump aftertouch (changing directions in midair)? How much aftertouch? What should happen when you jump off a slope? Should the impulse still be straight up, or should it be perpendicular to the slope? (Classic Sonic went with the latter; Sonic Rush went with the former. And now to this day I still can't take Sonic Rush seriously as a platformer in the classic vein.)

Getting games right is hard. Hell, getting slopes right is a test of mettle for any 2D game programmer. What needs to happen is the developers, once they have the basic engine put together, need to sit down and test and tweak, and test some more and tweak some more. Because that's what it takes to make a game "feel" right. And what they found out as they made these tweaks needs to be noted for future developers; it needs to become institutional knowledge.

The big difference between Nintendo and Sega is one of institutional knowledge. Quick, who do you think of when I say "Mario"? Well, Mario himself, but who in real life? Shigeru Miyamoto, right? Gaming's Walt Disney. What if I told you that Miyamoto, who had been producer or director on most Mario titles to date, only had a light touch on Super Mario Odyssey? And Super Mario Odyssey is the best damn Mario game to date! That's because the info on what makes a Mario game good and how to make a good Mario game has become institutional knowledge at Nintendo, passed from employee to employee and generation to generation. It is the ultimate mark of success of any genius that they eventually make themself obsolete, so that their successors can benefit from their knowledge without them when they die, retire, or quit. And Shigsy is coming up on retirement age...

Sega, er, didn't bother preserving that institutional knowledge from the first few Sonic games. And today, the end result is like they forgot it. It's like retrograde amnesia. While playing through Sonic Forces, I was reminded of nothing so much as early, 1980s Sega platformers, like Alex Kidd and the Wonder Boy series. In fact I have the modern remake of Wonder Boy III on my Switch, and the janky movement and floaty jumps from Forces all feel specifically familiar to what I remember from that game. But back in the 80s, you could sort of give them the benefit of the doubt. Nintendo basically invented the modern video-game-character jump with Super Mario Bros., and they weren't exactly forthcoming with that information back then because it was a competitive advantage for them, so other game houses had to either figure out on their own what made the Mario jumps so satisfying to use (Capcom), or else do without them and use a lesser mechanic (Konami, Sega).

But here's the thing: when Sega set about creating a better Mario in the early 90s, they succeeded. Sonic was everything Mario was at the time, and more. But in the early 90s, Sonic Team wasn't really a thing. It was just whoever had worked on Sonic 1. There wasn't a Miyamoto at the helm to set the standards and guide the trajectory for the series as a whole. Yuji Naka doesn't count, and neither does Naoto Ohshima. Later games would be passed from team to team, and while the basic engine remained the same, high-level knowledge of what went into that engine may have been lost along the way -- I'd say the best candidate for such a loss was the "Sonic Winter" of the late 90s, when Sega would go a whole console generation without developing a current-gen, native main-series Sonic title. (Sonic 3D Blast was a Genesis port, and the only other games in the franchise for the Saturn were Sonic R and Sonic Jam.) It was a time of tremendous upheaval for Sega, as they had to recover from the setbacks they suffered from the botched Sega CD and 32X launches, and the failure of the Saturn against the PlayStation and N64. This was also the time when Sonic fandom began to coalesce, and to be frank, the fandom which eventually formed couldn't give two shits about gameplay. So by the time the Adventure series appeared on the Dreamcast, already you could see a break in continuity of vision for where the series was going from a gameplay perspective. Bereft of the franchise's moorings, Sonic Team endlessly tried new things, wanted you to try new things, wanted you to like their experiments. But ultimately what they were trying to do was catch lightning in a bottle, and they failed at it. That's why I call the series "tryhard".

If I were the head of Sonic Team, I would instruct my subordinates to do what the fans already did: go back to the original Genesis games. If I can't find the original source code, I'd have them disassemble and reverse-engineer the ROMs. (That is what the fans did!) Part of the problem with updating OG Sonic physics for today may be that the original games were 2D and pixel-accurate, and largely used integer math to calculate the game state, whereas a modern 3D world would be built from floating-point coordinates in 3D space. Nevertheless, I would try to map the integer constants of Sonic's 2D world into 3D space, fit acceleration curves to what's observable from the 2D games, etc. I would have a model of Green Hill Zone Act 1, or a part of it, built in the 3D engine, and if Sonic does not control exactly as he does in the original Sonic 1, I would order more refinements to be made. This can be checked both through play-testing and by running side-by-side versions of original Sonic 1 and the modern engine, sending them synthetic button events, and seeing whether they match up. Once they do match up, only then would I add modern features like the boost, homing attack, etc.

I would have the programmers take careful notes on the refinements they made, and instruct them to put these notes into a company- or team-wide wiki. I would have them bring in their sons, daughters, or little siblings to play-test it. I would reach out to Sonic fans and select candidates for a limited beta test from among their number.

It's going to take effort and commitment for Sega to rescue Sonic from the scrappy heap. What Sonic Forces showed me is that Sega is not ready to make that commitment. It may be time for them to cut Sonic loose, to sell him to Nintendo or WayForward or somebody. I don't think they'll do that, though, because Sonic is the thing that's keeping their name in the limelight.

[deathbyvalentine]

Regenesis Drabbles. While containing no major plot spoilers, there may be things within considered FOIP. 

First Sight As if struck by thunder, he stopped still. The room had surely been robbed of air, otherwise, why else couldn’t he breathe? He stared at the man in front of him, too far to touch, and found himself unable to move.

He would recognise him anywhere, he knew him by heart. He was a little taller, a lot thinner, more grubby than he remembered him being. He could recall his face as perfectly as the last time he had saw him and there was no uncertainty in his mind that this was his Petrol.

Something within him broke. He was surging forward, not thinking of how this was impossible, of how something was clearly very wrong, simply thinking of the fact Petrol was here in this strange place, with him - 

And then there were arms in front of him, Cam blocking his movements, Axle hurrying Petrol out, and something really was wrong because he was screaming Petrol’s name and Petrol wasn’t moving. He wasn’t even glancing in his direction. And there had never been a single time when he had said Petrol’s name and he had not come running. He had never seen him panic, never seen him in pain without trying to fix it. He had never left him with tears on his face without wiping them away first. He had never hurt him.

Valve was taking to him, low and concerned, but the words were nothing but white noise to him. Fresh grief washed over him, hot and poisonous. Every wound he had had, not quite healed, had been ripped open again, and he was bleeding. 

This was an acute loneliness, being in a room with the lost part of your soul, and them not even realising they were lost.

Home Territory 

Soldier’s Rest was everything he had hoped it to be and more. The sun sparkled in a sky that was brilliantly blue, making the back of his neck hot. Everything was quiet except for the humming that came from the soft wind making the rusted metal sound, kicking up sand coloured dirt and dust AD it went. A thing that was like a cat, but not a cat, entwined itself around his ankles, and rubbed a striped face against his overalls. 

 He had a limited amount of time here by himself and he intended to make the most of it. He enjoyed being alone, as subversive as that was. It was a chance for him to breathe, to let his smile drop, a chance to be something like himself. Even if he wasn’t quite sure what that was. He slung his gun onto his back, and decided to explore.

He wandered through the towering, broken ships, passing through their shadows intermittently. He waved a hand to some of the people - there weren’t many, and they seemed as absorbed and contemplative as he felt. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel suffocated.

He came to a ship he decided he would call home. It wasn’t the biggest, or the cleanest, but it felt right. He wandered the creaking, mostly powered down decks until he found a room - or was it a closet? With a bed shoved inside it, and a red light illuminating the place. And he curled up on it, as small as he could go, and reached for his whiskey. Here, nobody could make him do anything. He would lie here, and sleep, and drink, until he had to move. He could have that, at least.

Confrontation

The outrage he felt was definitely irrational. Even the implication that he could hurt Petrol had filled him with an anger he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. He was sizing up to Axle, shoulders square, legs set. And perhaps that was because, in some small, frightened corner of his mind, he feared she was right. That he was hurting him. Damaging him just by virtue of the fact he existed around him. 

It was that thought that made him reel backwards, made him turn on his heel and leave the tightly packed corridor. He would risk everything for Petrol, but he would not risk hurting him. 

“Because fuck you, that’s why!” The cry echoed joyously across the battlefield. The camera crew were ready with the lights, and switched them on behind them. Bit of a bullet magnet admittedly, but damn did it look good on the reels. They stood, Petrol and Diesel. Damn heroes, guns blazing, smiles in place perfectly. Diesel laughed so easily as he slipped from the ruins they were posing on, joining the melee with barely a cautious glance. Petrol followed with an eye roll, but even he couldn’t hide the small smile that played on his lips. They worked best like this, weaving together, coming apart, going back to back to cover more ground with a spray of bullets. It felt like Petrol was an extension of himself, so intuitively they moved. 

****************** The affront ground was smaller than a battlefield, but damn, the energy was the same. That first catchphrase, shouted out, the clicking and rumble of the guns. But they were a little out of step, Vector just a moment out of time, not as decisive as he used to be. Or perhaps he was, and he was just even more calculating now. Each small change was jarring, throwing him off his game. He had learnt to fight solo damn it, denied every offer of a new partner, and now, well, it seemed he had gotten one anyway.

Favourites

They weren’t supposed to have favourites. He knew that. But man did he have a protective streak in his heart for Axle. The same as if he had grown up on the same ship as her or something. He had never really considered VolCorp much before meeting her. They were important, sure, as they all were, but they were usually just scattered on a battlefield. They were the workers he never spoke to.

And here she was, fearless but plagued with those screaming memories that he hadn’t been able to talk away. That had shaken him to his core, the mess she had been. Apparently Valve was in the process of keeping her steady, fixing her, but was it really helping? A little part of him decided right there he would fuck up anyone messing with her recovery.

Members of the Combine looked out for each other. And perhaps apparitions could be members too - he wasn’t sure if you were allowed to have favourites outside of the Combine. He should ask Valve. Because Sprocket, well, they had the ability to make a good comrade yet. And saving them wasn’t fucking with them. Technically.

My Heart He’s visiting me, and it’s complicated. It’s a mystery if he even wants to, or if he’s been ordered to. Soon, there would be others here, or I’ll be told to move or some other such bullshit, but right now, for a few blessed hours,

we’re alone.

You’re not meant to want to be alone in the Combine. Strength comes from those around you, the numbers you live within. If you’re solitary, you’re suspect. But sometimes I just wanted the noise to stop, to be able to think my own thoughts, to hear nothing but my own breath and blood. 

The music filters through the old radio, warm and familiar. All the broadcasts were recycled One World Radio shows. I suppose they all will be, for now, until we make more in this new world of ours. In the half-light of my room in the belly of a wrecked sky-ship, he looks almost like he used to. His stance is tense, his eyes flickering up to my face every few moments like he’s checking I’m still there, still watching, but never lingering. 

I’m not sure if it’s hurting me, I’m not sure if it’s healing me. I’m filled with an indescribable nostalgia for when we used to dance together, me laughing into his shoulder, his smile luminous. I hold out my hand to him, expecting to be rejected. It hands there for a moment, in the air, before he takes it (my heart jumping) and pulls me close to his chest. 

We don’t ask who will lead. We fall into old routines so easily, even if he doesn’t remember it. I rest my heart on his chest, our height difference more stark when we’re so close. I can hear his heart, hammering. I squeeze his fingers, and we begin to move slowly to the music. We’re a little clumsy. We’re relearning each other. He’s not quite as bold or easy in his movements, I can’t quite relax my defensive stance. 

I want to say so much, the words hot and bitter on my tongue. He isn’t looking at me. So I keep quiet, savour the moment, commit it to memory so I’ll still have it when it all falls apart. I wish it could be like this, always. Us alone, music playing, the calm stillness. This song will soon end though, and we’ll move apart. 

Dying He caught a bullet in the ribs, lodging into his lung, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. He tumbled into the ankle deep mud, wheezing, struggling furiously to catch his breath, to sit up. Slowly a circle of blood soaked through his jacket, blooming like a poisonous flower. He finally lay back, closing his eyes against the pain that jumped within him like erratic lightening. A tiredness seeped through him, making moving seem vastly unappealing. He imagined, idly, what a good poster this would make.

But then suddenly, hands on him. Familiar ones. Someone cursing at him, calling him an idiot, ripping his jacket off to give a medic access to the wound. Petrol pulled him up to lean against his chest, groaning as Diesel coughed up blood. “Dickhead. That’s what you get for running off without me.” ********************************** The grenade exploded with a brutality he had not experienced in a long while. His ears rang, all else blocked out by the high pitched whine. He staggered a little, and looked down. Huh. A piece of metal stuck out of him at an odd angle, sending sharp, shooting pains up his side. Huh.  He went to his knees easily enough. And before he even had time to fall forward, hands caught him. Anonymous medics fussed over him while nearby a radio crew buzzed. There was no comfort, no touch, just the steady, consistent work of the well trained. He didn’t recognise a single one of their voices. He closed his eyes, steady breathing letting him ease the pain, just a little. A small, traitorous part of him wondered would it not be better if he couldn’t be fixed. A glorious martyr, an end to constant war, finally a little peace.

He was hauled to his feet.

Interviews

*Bzzzzz.*  *Bzzzzzzzzzz* “You’ve tuned into.... ONE WORLD RADIO. And joining us on this glorious, united day is the man of the hour, Diesel of the End Of The Line! How are you today comrade?” “I’m - I’m fine I guess - “ “That’s the spirit! Of course, the front lines are simply buzzing with the news of your partner’s tragic death. But you see listeners? Diesel has decided to keep fighting in his name! Isn’t that right?” “It’s... Important to remember... What he died for. What he fought for. And... And keep. Keep doing it. Otherwise, um, it’s pointless?” “Strong words! There of course has been rumours of a new team up for you.” “There has?”

“With none other than the ravishing Comrade Belt!” “Fuck me.” “I’m sure most of our listeners would love to! But back to partners - “  “Uh, I’m not quite ready yet. I don’t want to talk about this -” “The listeners want to know -”

“I don’t want another one, alright? I’m done.” *END MUSIC.* *Bzzzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz.*

[topicprinter]

People often say that web design and digital marketing niches are too saturated and that it's impossible to succeed. Here's my story that might help someone out. I live in Central Europe, so things might be a little bit different in other parts of the world.Background: I've been in the internet marketing industry for several years. Had ups and downs, went from zero to hero and vice versa several times. I made over 200 sites in my life and because internet marketing is too shaky, I decided that it was time to start a more safe business that will generate constant revenue. I'm not getting younger, so IM shakeups might give me a heart attack someday.So I started a web design company in February this year. I had zero references and zero of my past work to show because those 200 sites that I've made prior were optimized for one thing only (CTR), so they look terrible from the design aspect and I can't show them to prospects. Because I needed the references and something to show to future clients, I decided to offer my web design services for peanuts: 150 to 200€ per website. At this rate, I'd need 10 to 15 clients to pay all of my bills and company's expenses, but I decided to risk it.It took me 2 days to create a website for myself. I created landing page packed with promises for advertising and bought reseller hosting with 80GB capacity so I could host my future clients. The hosting cost me 150€ for 1 year and I calculated that I can pack it with about 100 clients (most of them need 200MB of space, some up to 2GB). If I charge them all 30€ per year for hosting, I'll get 2850€ of pure profit every year which isn't bad considering that I don't have to do anything except sending them the invoice every year. Hosting 300 sites would get me 8550€ of profit per year. This would more than cover all of my individual taxes for the entire year which is something I found worth striving for.I immediately went on Google Adwords and started advertising. I used Adwords in the past for some of my affiliate marketing projects and I mostly made losses, so I was super nervous about Adwords. In about 2-3 days I started getting calls and soon I got my first couple of clients. A dog training company, a dancer, a fitness instructor, couple of alternative healers, and so on. Nothing big, but enough to start the ball rolling.The first few months were painful. I worked 10+ hours per day and dealt with all kinds of crap. Every client had different expectations and needs and I promised to fulfil all of them. If I didn't know how, I learned. Simple as that.In about a month I got a call from a prospect asking me if I can create a vector logo. Of course I said yes although I had zero experience with vectors. My logo design process until that point was finding an appropriate free stock image, adding text and that's it. The client sent me the drawing, I installed Adobe Illustrator and spend the entire day (about 10 hours) working on the logo, watching tutorials on Youtube and learning everything about Adobe Illustrator. I asked for 20€ before I started working, so I was paid 2€ per hour for this job which of course it's peanuts. However, I knew that the next logo will take me 2 hours, and the next 1 hour and so on.After a while I got another client asking me about Adwords marketing. I never launched a campaign for a client and I was completely honest about it. I offered them a pro-bono advertising campaign and it was a success. I contacted a couple of my past clients to let them know that I can help them with Adwords (pro bono, I was a good Samaritan) and after three campaigns, I had enough self-esteem to offer Adwords marketing to just about anyone.So it took me a couple of months to transform my web design company into a company with a full range of digital services, although the primary focus was still web design.I finished tons of different sites in the first couple of months. I redesigned my website and included references to finished projects. I increased the price of my services a little bit and decided to offer a logo design service in the package for free. It was a package no one could refuse because I was still dirt cheap.Somewhere along the way, this happened. I got an email from a prospect asking me to design a website. The prospect sent me 3 examples of what kind of website they want. All of them were terrible and easy to create. Top bar, header, simple footer and content area (no sidebars, no nothing). I could set up everything with a blank WP theme and a little bit of customization in 2 to 3 hours, so I asked for 300€. They seemed like a medium-sized company, but 300€ should do it. I'm kind of shocked that I didn't say 250€ or some other bullshit. In a few days, I got a call from that prospect, asking me all kinds of weird questions.What's wrong with your sites?Do they work on mobile phones?Is there something you aren't telling us?At the end, the prospect told me that they have doubts because they sent inquiries to several web design agencies and most of the others asked for 800€+ and even over 2000€. I was mindblown and decided that it was time to increase prices. I can't sell a website for 800€ to a small business, but I learned that I can charge more to larger companies.Things were looking good for most of the summer. I easily generated enough revenue to pay my bills, clients kept on coming, but the work started to pile up. Somewhere around the end of summer, I talked to several people. I told them what keeps me from working faster and what kind of crap I'm taking from clients. They helped me come up with a few solutions.I decided to change my mindset and approach to dealing with clients.I expect every client to tell me exactly how many pages they need, so I can tell them the estimated price. If they change their minds in the middle of the process, the price goes up.I tell every client that the price isn't fixed. If they want something as an addition in the middle of the design process, the price goes up. If they aren't ready to pay extra, then they should go somewhere else.I tell every client about my work process. I will create a demo website so they can test the design. This takes me no more than a couple of hours. After they are happy with the design, they need to back off completely until they prepare every little piece of content that they want me to publish on the website. Once everything is sent to me, I'll start and not a minute before that.Once I've implemented these things, the work got a lot easier and faster. I might lose a couple of clients here and there because of it, but it's totally worth it. Right now I have much more capacity, I have more time and I could theoretically finish 5 sites in a week.Getting larger clientsBecause I have something to show for, I am occasionally getting larger clients with larger projects. I'm currently finishing two projects that will require me to work on them indefinitely for a couple of hours per month. I expect them to be finished in about 1 month if I get another project like that, I expect them to cover all of my company's taxes every month.The problem is that large companies don't search for web design services on Google, so it's hard to get them through Adwords. They pick web design agencies through word of mouth recommendations and I'm not an authority in the area. Yet.Getting off the AdwordsAdwords has done wonders for my business, but it's costly. There are tons of web designers in my country and not many of them are using Adwords. Why? Because they are getting enough clients without marketing.I realized that the future is in partnering with other businesses. I created a free website for an accountant. In return, he's going to be my free accountant for the next 2 years. Hooray. But what's even better is that his services are 20€ to 50€ per month. This means that he needs tons of clients to make a living. And most of these clients have websites and they will need a renovation sooner or later. So he is dealing with a lot of clients who need or will need a website, and I'm dealing with people who will need accounting services sooner or later. We established a copromotion (he lets his clients know that I'm the guy for web design and I let my clients know that he's the guy for accounting services). I don't know how many clients I brought him, but he brought me two clients (with several more coming up) in the past two months.I also partnered with two other companies that have lots of connections. However both of these companies want the work to be done through them, so my company isn't mentioned anywhere. I don't even talk to clients. They send the questionnaire to their prospects, I set up the price, they charge their margins on top of that, and that's it. I get paid, they get commission and we're all happy. So far I got 3 clients from one of these two partners in the past two months and the other partner will start promoting soon.What am I doing now?I got 4 new projects last week and I temporarily canceled my Adwords campaign to finish as many older projects as I can before the end of October. I'm also redesigning my website for the third time this year because I want it to look like there's a full-scale agency behind it.In November I expect magic to happen.I'll relaunch my Adwords campaign and triple the budget. Go big or go home.I'll stop being a charity organization. I finished about 50 projects this year and every week one or two past clients want something from me. Either help with something they screwed up on their site, or some other bizarre crap such as "Why does an image lose it's resolution when I paste it into MS Word?". I'll start charging by the hour.I'll increase the price of web design services because I've been dirt cheap for the entire year. I'll also publish the minimum price on my site, so I don't have to deal with people with budgets below my price.Logo won't be free anymore. Whoever wants it, will have to pay extra.I'll finish everything with one of my partners who I expect will bring me a few clients per month for commission.Goals for 2020Grow my company to the point where I'll be able to hire 1-2 people to help me out with everything.Open a LLCBecome an authority in the web design and digital marketing industry in my countryGet clients from countries where the price is x5. It's going to be hard, but I'm in talks with a few partners who can make things easier.The endSo there's that. I wish I'd ask more people for advice at the start because my whole journey was a pain in the ass until the end of summer.

[passingthroughstranger]

Ultraman Orb x Zone of the Enders x Super Robot Wars V

The game is a month away. Ultraman Orb is one of the best shows Tsuburaya has made thus far. Zone of the Enders is the least overrated game of all time that deserves your money. But Fucking Konami screwed over Kojima Hideo and the chance for ZOE3 has been thrown into vector space forever. Imma combine them all into a fanfic. And because I always wanted to have either one of them in an SRW game... in a way, I can have two for the price of one lol I'd put a Read More, but it's not available on mobile so... A warning; I've been reading that Self Inserts are frowned upon. But I'm unable to think up of a good OC to be the protagonist. And I also read that SI-Fics are mostly okay and haters gonna hate. Or something. So yes, this is gonna be an SI-Fic. I can only promise that I won't make the same mistakes that are common on SI-Fics or many OC-centric stories. And that it will have cool moments. Anyway, the story... I need SRWV to be released so I can buy the game in order to know when should SI-Me appear in the story. But I know one way to start, thanks to Crossbone Gundam. The manga's story started around Jupiter. Both Zone of the Enders began also around Jupiter. I can have either Kincaid/Seabook or Tobia discovering SI-Me who's inside Jehuty. Not knowing how he got inside here, where or when he is, SI-Me teamed up with the Crossbone Vanguards to survive. Yes, I am basically redoing the plot for ZOE2, but let's be real; only Kojima can do a proper continuation. But there will be differences, to spice things up. For one thing, BAHRAM or anything related to the ZOE universe doesn't exist in the SRWV timeline. I'll tell you know that Jehuty WILL fight Anubis. But the one who is runnin Anubis? Not Nohman, lemme tell ya now. When does the Ultraman part starts? Well, I don't think I'll be repeating the plot for Orb, maybe I will for certain episodes, but I plan for it to be tributes to the battles from past Ultraman shows. Like both times when Ultraman fought the Baltans, Ultraman stopping Jamila, Ultraseven struggling against King Joe, Jack being double teamed by Gudon & Twintail and Knuckle & Black King, the Six Ultra Brothers vs Tyrant and Alien Tempera, Tiga vs Kylieroid... I'll figure out how to do them while the Super Robot Wars and ZOE plots are happening, but in order to make those tribute battles better, the forms Orb!Me uses will correspond with the respective Ultras I'm basing the chapters on. So Hurricane Slash Orb will be facing both Gudon and Twintail, Photon Victorium Orb will survive against Gan-Q (I'd watch Gaia to know more if the episodes from Crunchyroll were available outside of the USA, but I guess I can blame those Chaiyo guys for us Southeast Asians not getting them), Emerium Slugger Orb will get his ass kicked by King Joe... Man, it would be cool if Juggler still has the Dark Ring, he can combine Showa and Heisei monsters like Zeppandon and become them. Imagine a Mephilas x Kylieroid form, or a Alien Empera x Dark Zagi combo... But he's a good guy again now. And my ability to describe things are still absolutely shit. Fan-fucking-tastic. Well, you get the idea. Oh, he will start with only the Specium Zeppelion form, so it won't make him OP if he had all the cards from the show and the arcade game... and SI-Me will share Dingo's misery by having him be stuck inside Jehuty. The twist is that due to the differences of technology, nobody knows how to replace his artificial heart and lungs with organic ones. I'd tell you, but I don't want to spoil anything. Unless one or two of the mecha series have such tech, that is. There's a lot to watch. So yes, he'll be stuck inside the hangar and the only people he can interact with at that state are the more sociable heroes and the mechanics. Tall, athletic, buff, pretty lady mechanics who are older than SI-Me (I be 24 now). Thank you Sunrise for creating Mora Boscht lol Speaking of Stardust Memory, that entry doesn't appear much these days. Same goes for the 08th MS Team and Christina Mackenzie from War in the Pocket. I plan to rectify that. Yes, they should be older by CCA, and (some) are probably retired (or dead) from the war thanks to the Federation's bullshit (maybe Christina is still around) but somehow I'm gonna have them appear in this story. Heh, maybe have Jehuty use their respective Gundams' arsenals. Like the Dendrobium Orchis, Alex's gatling gun arm, Ez8's backpack hooks... or something. Ooh, maybe have the mechs themselves come back... maybe have a story where SI-Me discover the files of Operation Stardust and show them to the others. Giving me a good reason to have Kou Uraki and the gang in the story. In conclusion, the main plot for the fanfic, other than following the stories of Orb, ZOE2, and SRWV, is this; SI-Me woke up inside the Orbital Frame Jehuty. Neither he or ADA know how both of them are in their current predicament. He will be rescued by Kincaid/Seabook or Tobia, or perhaps any other of the casts of V depending on how the story of the game goes, and joins them to figure out why both he and Jehuty are there. Before he does that, an Ultra Kaiju or alien appears to wreck things. The Orb Ring he found glowed a bit, and when it resonates... he understood. Then, SI-Me transforms into Ultraman Orb Specium Zeppelion, and I can finally have and Ultraman in an SRW story lol Like in many Other World stories these days, be they official or fanfics, SI-Me knows who the SRW casts are (except the Original Generations, since I rarely cared for them) so he has to be careful on what he says to them. Although, I read that Might Gaine has a... pretty meta story. I think it could help. Fortunately, tokusatsu still exists in the timeline, so SI-Me can have an easier time explaining how an Ultraman works. There will be mysteries, there will be High Speed Robot Action, there will be romcoms consisting of a short-ass scrawny looking joe being teased a lot by a gang of taller, beautifully buff mechanic ladies, there will be giant robots teaming up with an even bigger giant alien (note that many mechas are at least around 20 meters high. The Ultras are around 40-50 meters taller) There will be running gags regarding Jehuty's peculiar cockpit, and people will laugh. Come February 23, I will buy that game and that fanfic will be written.